The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Looking for the best cost-benefit outcome
By Mark Reaman
While acknowledging that the Late Night Taxi is a valuable service for the North Valley, how to make it more cost effective is under the microscope by the Mountain Express board of directors. Mountain Express oversees the shuttle that ferries people primarily between Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte and to various other locations in the North Valley until the local bars close their doors in the wee hours.
Mountain Express managing director Jeremy Herzog will be going to the two town councils in the next month to see what level of interest and financial support the towns are willing to contribute. The two towns along with the RTA fund the Late Night Taxi which costs about $236,000 annually to operate.
Last year the service provided about 3,700 rides, and while each ride cost the customer $10, another $50 is subsidized through local government entities. The taxi is overseen by Mountain Express which contracts Alpine Express to run the service. It operates 365 days per year from 10 p.m. until 3 a.m.
Herzog said that at the August 15 board meeting, the representatives “agreed the service was worth maintaining and Mountain Express devoting governance time to oversee it. The board also felt it does not have the budget to fund it without additional municipal funding, above and beyond our 95% of 1% of sales tax and our admissions tax funding that we receive from Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte. The board asked the councils to come to a conclusion around the validity of funding the service, as it is their funding source to allocate. It was discussed how this was a good cause, but there are lots of good causes competing for funding from the towns.”
One idea was to look at going back to having the regular bus system continue operations beyond the current stopping point of 11:30 p.m. Herzog said after staff provided a detailed analysis of extending the bus route, it was also agreed that the best model was to continue in an on-demand format through an outside contractor. One possibility considered was to utilize Downtowner, the group that runs the FirstTracks system in Mt. Crested Butte, but there would be minimal cost savings from that approach.
Mountain Express took over the Late Night Taxi three years ago when the local Bartender’s Association dissolved. Funding is primarily from the two municipalities with a contribution from the RTA. It takes about $190,000 in contributions to run and Alpine Express collects about $40,000 in fares. Herzog said Mountain Express leadership also oversees the service by monitoring weekly ridership data, acting as a customer advocate when an issue arises, providing marketing materials and reporting monthly performance metrics to the board.
The Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte councils plan to discuss this issue in upcoming meetings. A joint work session with the two elected bodies is also being planned for September 23 to discuss overall Mountain Express issues.
Looking down the roadat FirstTracks
Meanwhile the Mountain Express board is deciding how to continue with the FirstTracks service in Mt. Crested Butte. “The board was very supportive of the service and liked the growth of winter ridership but questioned its value in the summer,” Herzog said. “They have asked Downtowner to provide various costs before making a final decision on how to proceed at the September 26 meeting for the upcoming 2024-25 season.”
The on-demand service serving all of north Mt. Crested Butte carried 49,214 riders in the ski season, a 132% increase over the old bus route that carried 21,135 passengers. Summer numbers thus far show 5,562 people have used First Tracks, a 21% increase over the bus route from last summer. The previous summer condo route was only started in 2018, and never carried more than three patrons per hour. While the FirstTracks summer program has operated at a lower cost per passenger than the bus did, it is still well outside the bounds of all the other bus routes.
The cost of FirstTracks is approximately $700,000 compared to about $475,000 to run the old bus route that was eliminated with FirstTracks based on operating costs per hour.
Staff recommended pursuing costs and details of three scenarios. The first would be to have FirstTracks operate like it did this past year but only in the winter. The estimated cost would be about $460,000. The second scenario has FirstTracks operating winter service but also taking over the Late Night Taxi service for 300 of 365 nights a year. That would require adding a fifth vehicle to the FirstTracks fleet and hopefully contribute to better performance with both programs. The total cost of that second option would be about $680,000 and would be contingent upon additional funding for the Late Night Taxi program. The third scenario before the board has FirstTracks providing winter service, along with limited summer service, maybe just six weeks during the core of summer, and 300/365 nights of Late Night Taxi service. That is most likely the most expensive scenario, and Downtowner is currently evaluating options for how it might operate more cost effectively in the summer, given the lower ridership demand.
Prior to making a decision on FirstTracks, and due to the involvement with the Late Night Taxi, Herzog will present to both the Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte town councils for direction on funding.
